


Hug Drug

by DJClawson



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ableist Language, Adult Language, Blind jokes, Gen, batman is a cartoon, consensual drug use, dancesafe.org, don't use drugs kids, or do I don't care, so many blind jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-30 15:46:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3942457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/pseuds/DJClawson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Who were you going to fight?” Foggy asks. “Who is the blind ninja army going to war with?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Um.” This question has Matt stuck for a moment. “I dunno. The deaf?”</em>
</p>
<p>Matt and Foggy decide to tell Karen about Daredevil, but in the worst way possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sitter

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Season 1. In this universe, the Marvel characters are real people, and the DC characters are comics and movies and whatnot. 
> 
> I also need a beta for this and future works, so leave a message if you're interested in helping. This chapter has no beta.

Fisk has been in jail – no bond, of course, that “waiting helicopter” escape attempt making the judge’s decision easy – for two months. Eight weeks of cold, bitter air sweeping through the city, with gusts snaking between buildings. It is a time to run inside for warmth, with the homeless sleeping in subway stations for heat, outside vendors not bothering with their tables, and petty thievery at a low point for the year. It has also meant very few Daredevil sightings, even though people have been watching for him. Matt says two reports aren’t even him. There’s at least one looney toon with a devil mask up on a roof.

Which does not make things all peachy keen. Matt is tense. Matt is always tense; Foggy doesn’t know why he expected him to be otherwise. He does show up to work looking less like a domestic abuse case, he does do less sleeping while sitting straight up in his office chair, but he looks like he is just built to be tense. Foggy notices this especially as they walk back from the courthouse, where a possession charge hearing was cancelled due to weather conditions preventing the judge from getting into the city. It’s a little hard to tell through all of the layers of wool and silk, but Matt’s hand is gripping Foggy’s arm a little harder as they cross the street. Winter is always tough; his cane has to find the ordinary stuff, the white sheets that form frozen rivers at the sidewalk corners, where the natural dip in the pavement makes puddles the rest of the year.

“Let’s do the other corner,” Foggy says automatically, which means this one is more precarious, and they’ll take the roundabout way and cross over twice to avoid a patch of solid, uneven ice. Matt has already found it with his cane. He doesn’t need to answer.

This rhythm is comfortable – it’s something that didn’t change after Foggy found out about the Man in the Mask. They fell right back into it after Matt explained that it was easier for him to focus less on the road, and he was used to it. And he missed it. And he’s allergic to dogs.

Plus you can’t just throw the dog into a dumpster like a cane. Hell’s Kitchen is almost petty crime free and he’s still on his third this month. He doesn’t offer a good explanation.

“What are you doing Saturday night?”

Matt looks more confused by the question than anything else, but he’s always very hard to read. “Do you want to know?”

“It’s going to be single digits. I’m having trouble imagining who works in that weather and I studied criminal law. On your left.” He veers away from an old snowbank that still hasn’t managed to melt in the sun despite it being a week old. It’s a filthy gray, which partially hides how slippery it still is. “You shouldn’t be out _now_ , in broad daylight. No one should be. Unless you want to fall and sue the city.”

“It would help keep the student loan people off our backs.”

“Very funny.” They’re almost to the avenue, thank G-d. “If you ever get really desperate I guess you could go to Times Square and have tourists pay to take pictures with you.”

“Isn’t that selling my body?”

“If you tell the six Spider-mans there that, they’ll be very offended,” Foggy said. He could see his breath. “Hey, do you think of them might be the real Spider-man?”

“If he feels the way I feel about it, then probably not.” Matt is finally smiling. He does it so rarely these days. “But I guess we’ll never know.”

“Unless you told me – “

“I don’t – Foggy, there’s not a mailing list.”

“Maybe you just haven’t been invited yet. Or they did it the old fashioned way, and sent you a letter, and you haven’t let me read you your mail in forever, so that’s why you don’t know.”

“I have a camera phone for that.”

Foggy shakes his head. “I’m being replaced by an app.”

“Is that want you want to do Saturday night? Come over and read me my electricity bill? I pay it with direct deposit,” Matt says as they finally reach the office and paus in the doorway, where coats could be unbuttoned and shockingly warm air could be inhaled. “Marci’s out of town, isn’t she?”

“This isn’t about her. This is about you and me and me getting you to relax the only way I know how. Which we should do because we haven’t in a while and I think it’s taking its toll.”

“Foggy, we’re lawyers now. We _uphold the law_.”

“If every person you’ve assaulted could press charges, how many counts would you be looking at?”

“They could never get them to stick. Not without CCTV footage and a strong self-defense claim.”

“How many?”

Matt’s left hand twists around his cane. “I don’t have a count.”

“Which is why this is, in comparison, no big deal. We’re adults, we know what we’re doing – “

“We need a sitter.”

“Everyone’s being replaced by apps. It’s called TripSit.”

“I’m not great with a touch screen.”

“Karen,” Foggy said with finality. “Karen would totally do it. And you need to tell Karen, anyway.”

“You tell her. It’s your idea.”

“No, about the – “ He waves his hand over his face. “I just waved my hand in front of my face.” He knows there’s no way to fight every urge for visual cues. “Like a mask. Like I’m wearing a mask.”

He can see Matt’s face tighten. When Matt swallows, it’s like he’s tied all of his neck muscles up in a knot. “And how is this a good way to do it?”

“She’ll be upset for a period of time – and I remind you, that period of time is only going to get longer the more you wait – and you’ll be okay with it. I’ll talk her down. I get really talkative.” He watches Matt’s expression. “Or we can make a game night decision. Maybe she’s got some shit to unload on us when she thinks we’re vulnerable.”

“This isn’t an office therapy session.”

“Yes. It isn’t. A real therapist would be much more expensive by the hour and you wouldn’t say a damn thing. And you know that you wouldn’t.” Foggy tries to sound as exasperated as possible. “Plus, when was the last time we did this?”

“When we passed the bar exam.”

“When we passed the bar exam. Which means you haven’t relaxed since we passed the bar exam.”

Matt opens his mouth, and then shuts it. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a wallet, holding out a twenty folded into four quarters. “Don’t buy the test kit from the dealer.”

“Who would be stupid enough to do that?”

The infamous grin returns. “You mean a second time?”

 ***********************************************

It’s Thursday. They’re eating lunch in the conference room with Karen, making the place stink to high heaven of garlic pizza, which Foggy insists will help cover the slight mold smell they’ve been unable to root out. They don’t think it’s that bad, and Matt is used to it. He’s used to pretending he’s used to a lot of things. The smell he can handle, but there’s no way he’s biting into that greasy pizza rolled and handled by a guy who uses the kind of ointments and makeup men use to cover sores. He knows he can easily be mistaken for OCD, the way he orders a salad and then washes all the lettuce when it comes. He’s over it.

“I got the stuff,” Foggy says, offering no further explanation to Karen. “If we’re going halfsies, you owe me another forty.”

“For what?”

“Assorted supplies,” Foggy says. “Your apartment is shit, Matt. You don’t have a single working lamp.”

“Why are we doing it at my place?”

“Because you don’t know my place.” Which makes a lot of sense. Matt also doesn’t like the way it smells, but that is not worth mentioning. “I have very little furniture and I don’t want it to be the mess your furniture is in.” He must have sensed Karen’s curiosity too. It’s probably in her facial expression. “Karen, we have a favor to ask. A big favor. And you can say no.” He takes another bite of pizza. “You can totally say no. You do not have to consent to anything.”

Karen is looking at Matt. She’s turned her head in his direction. He doesn’t need to wait for her to say his name. “I don’t think, technically, we need a sitter. But it’s better.” He stabs at a wedge of lettuce, eager to fill his mouth with something. “We’re going to do ecstasy and it’s good to have someone there. And our last guy – “

“ – is under investigation for his work at Landman and Zack,” Foggy pitched in. “So he’s probably got a lot on his mind.”

“You guys do drugs. Hard drugs.”

“Some people classify MDMA as a therapy drug,” Matt says evenly. It helps that he believes it. “The most serious risks are dehydration and overhydration. And drug conflicts with SSRIs and MAO inhibitors, which neither of us are on.” He adds, “There’s a lot of medical literature about it, if you want.”

“This is also the only way to see Matt relaxed. Ever. In the history of the world,” Foggy says, a little too cheerfully. He probably has a bunch of shit saved up for this. “Look, we’re not idiots. We know what dose to take, we know what to not mix it with, and we have rules about what can and can’t happen. We’re basically asking you to sit in Matt’s apartment for like, six hours, and listen to trance music while Matt tries to braid my hair.”

“I don’t always do that.”

Foggy is giving him a look. Matt knows. And he knows that Foggy knows that he knows. “I know it’s luscious but _come on_.”

Matt shrugs. “Tell me to stop next time.”

“Why don’t you ask Marci?” Karen asks, reasonably.

“She’s out of town. And she’s kinda ... bad vibes?” Foggy is looking at Matt. “We did it with her in school. With like three other people. Matt spent the whole time curled up in the corner. I think he was trying to fuse with someone’s football.” He does not wait for Matt to say something; Matt hardens his jaw but wasn’t going to. “Also, this is not a sex thing. If it was, Matt would have to make an honest man out of me.”

“Which is technically impossible,” Matt said. Karen’s heart had stopped racing; she was considering it. Or just less creeped out. “It’s really not. And you can leave if you don’t like it. It’s just better if we have someone to – “

“Babysit you?”

“That’s not – “ He listens to her voice. She’s agreeing. “Yeah, maybe that’s the word.”

***********************************************

Karen heads to Matt’s place at five in the afternoon on Saturday. It’s winter and it’s already getting dark. She doesn’t want to stay up to late, Foggy’s only running on excitement fumes, and Matt wants to be up for church the next morning.

Matt’s apartment still looks like shit. There’s been a concentrated effort to clean it recently, so there’s no broken glass and that’s saying something, but the door to his bedroom is held up with duct tape, his rug is missing, and the only lamp is conspicuously new-looking, as in it’s still wrapped in plastic and tied up with rubber bands. She gives him credit for trying. There’s also a bit more snack food in the fridge than she’s used to – must be for Foggy, Matt is a health nut – and dinner, for her, because they’re keeping their stomachs empty.

Foggy is shaving down a white pill on the counter, which is loaded with dropper bottles and assorted medical-looking supplies. He’s dressed down. So is Matt, who is in a hoodie and wandering around in his socks, listening to something from his phone.

Karen eats and watches Foggy drop different testing liquids onto the pill shavings. “How did you get into this?”

“Law school,” Foggy says, not taking his eyes off his work. “We were spending way too much on alcohol. And pickling our livers. My language TA was huge into the rave scene – in New York, which is not very impressive. You’re supposed to go out to the desert and try to time your peak with the sunrise and all that shit. Way too intense. Neither of us are really crowd people.” It was his way of saying that _Matt_ wasn’t a crowd person. “Plus people _do_ die that way. Of dehydration. Or hyperthermia. Or drug interactions.” He adds a few more drops to the last shavings. “You know they want to approve this for anxiety?”

“For terminal cancer patients,” Matt points out, because Matt has to be accurate, even if it was unhelpful. “You keep eating those eels, you might qualify.”

“They’re all natural!”

“Nothing in that bar is natural, Foggy. Except the mold in the bathroom.” Matt opens his palm and Foggy gives him a pill and a glass of water. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” He turns to Karen. “Okay. These are the rules. No alcohol, no nudity, and we tend to overshare, so if you don’t want to answer, you can say ‘pass.’ And if you don’t like a topic you can just say ‘veto’ and no one can ask any more questions about it. Like this.” He twirls around. “Matt, how’s your mom?”

“Dude, let me finish my drink!” But Matt is smiling. “Veto.”

“See that? That’s a bad topic.”

“How’s your crushing insecurities, Foggy?”

“Pass.” He turns back to her. “See? Easy.”

She is beginning to understand how these two had stayed friends all these years. “Yeah. Easy.”


	2. I am the Night

The evening continues in a very normal fashion. Matt doesn’t have a TV and his laptop screen is cracked, but it’s good enough to watch a stand-up special on Netflix. Aziz Ansari is very funny. Even if Matt describes his voice as “small daggers in my ears” he’s still more than willing to watch with them. All in all, not a particularly exciting night.

Until about forty-five minutes in, when Matt decides he needs to be on the floor.

“No!” Foggy races across the room. “You can’t get injured again!”

“It’s my floor. I can lie on it all I want.”

“Where’s your G-ddamn rug?”

“With some very discreet cleaners.”

“I’ve got this,” Foggy says. He brought a fairly large package with him that’s leaning against the breakfast nook. He opens it to reveal a massive roll of bubble wrap packaging. “I’ve totally got this.” He topples it instead, and needs Karen to help him roll it out on the floor, and convince Matt to shift onto it. Matt finally settles on being facedown, most of his body under or partially covered in bubble wrap, with his head itself smooshed into the wood. He removes his glasses, but it’s Karen who scoops them up and puts them somewhere safe.

So, yeah. Babysitting.

They watch a bit more of the special. Matt says nothing, but his eyes are open. Karen wonders if he can sleep with his eyes like that. She turns the lamp on, but the room is still fairly well-lit from the billboard, which gives it a weird cycle of mood lighting.

“Matt?” She thinks about kicking him. He looks kind of ... kickable. “What are you doing?”

“Two floors down,” he says, his face muffled by the floor. “They’re watching a Simpsons rerun. I like this episode.”

“I want to hear!” Foggy nearly trips over the plastic wrap, but he makes it to the floor, and puts an hear to it. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Um, because you’re not me,” Matt says. “Duh.”

“Can you hear people having sex?”

“Foggy.”

“ _Matt_.”

“Foggy, it’s gross. It’s – it’s gross. And rude. And they’re always doing it when I’m trying to sleep. It’s like, everyone in Hell’s Kitchen decides to have sex when I’m trying to get to sleep. I have four hours before I have to be in the office and it’s sex time in Manhattan.”

“I feel so bad for you.”

“I know you’re lying, Foggy.”

Foggy huffs and gets to his feet, making his way back to the kitchen. Karen is about to ask him if he needs help when he returns with a massive bag of hard candy and a flashlight. “Don’t say anything.”

“I can hear you,” Matt says from the floor.

Foggy slumps into the chair, clutching the opened bag as if it’s something he needs to protect, and turns the flashlight on, swiping it over Matt’s face and trying not to giggle. Matt’s eyes are facing mostly down, somewhere out on the space in front of him, and there is no response to the beam of light.

“Screw you, I know you’re doing something,” Matt says, but there isn’t any real malice.

“How do you know?”

“The bulb gives off heat,” Matt says. “You don’t – you know you can’t do this.”

“Well then let me lie around you.”

“I don’t see how those are comparable.” But Matt still hasn’t moved. His mouth is still smothered by the floor. “ _Karen,_ tell him to stop.”

“I’m not your mother.” She does turn to Foggy. “You should stop though. It’s rude.”

“Tell him to get off the floor and stop me.”

But Matt just tries to dig his head further in the floorboards. “No. It’s soft.” He raises his hand. “Gimme some Vicks.”

Foggy knows what he means, and removes a bottle of Vick’s vapor rub from his bang, which he tosses – more like hurls – at Matt’s prone form. And without lifting his head, Matt catches it. Perfectly.

Like he’s not blind.

“I can throw stuff at you now!” Foggy almost bounces up in his chair. “Do you know how happy this makes me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m gonna throw you some more stuff.”

“No.”

“I have more stuff.”

“Gimma a minute.” Matt sits up on his elbows and messes with the packaging, which takes him a very long time, but he finally manages to get the goo out and rubs it under his nose, then sinks back into the floor. “Awesome.”

“What does your floor smell like?”

“Well, now it smells like Vicks.”

“What does it normally smells like?”

Matt’s face scrunches up. “That swiffer sweeper shit. It doesn’t even work. And uh, blood.”

“Your blood?”

“Pretty much every surface in this apartment smells like my blood, so it’s okay.”

Foggy is not nearly as alarmed by this as Karen is. “Have you bled on this chair?”

“Um, probably.” He picks his head up as if he’s going to make some effort to address this, then puts it back down. “Not recently. Don’t worry about it.”

Foggy looks at Karen. Or in Karen’s direction. “What about the couch?”

“It’s _way_ easier to clean,” Matt says. He rolls on his side, grabbing some of the bubble wrap and finally using it for its intended purpose: making popping sounds.

“Is there anywhere you haven’t bled on?”

Matt continues his rather diligent work for a few seconds. “No.” He adds, after another few pops. “Probably not.” Another few crackles. “The ceiling?”

“There’s a balloon up there.”

“Yeah, Karen said there’s a monkey on it.”

Her gift balloon has migrated up there, well out of reach. She has no idea how long the helium will last. Surely not forever? “I got it because you said you were in a car accident.”

“No,” Matt corrects. “ _Foggy_ said I was in a car accident.”

“Well I had to say something!”

“Well I told you not to pick up the phone!” His voice is loud but he’s also giggling. “I’m gonna be in soooo many car accidents. Poor cars.”

“You could stop being in car accidents!” Foggy points his flashlight at Karen. “I’m still mad at him. I’m trying to still be mad at him.”

This Matt finds utterly hilarious, enough that he has to roll onto his back. “You can’t stay mad at me. You love me.”

“I managed for like, a whole week. So shut up!” Foggy hurled a piece of candy at him. Matt caught it with the same ease as the bottle. “Take your candy and your falling down stairs and your doors being walked into – “

“That happened once. For real.” Matt made a wild gesture to indicate a swinging door. “G-ddamn Starbucks customer just storms out of there, all high on caffeine – “ He really struggles with the plastic wrap around the candy for a moment before tossing it up in the air and catching it with his teeth. “Right in the kisser. Nearly broke my nose. Stupid sighted people. No excuse!”

“Was that the time you came in with a black eye?”

“Which time? There was a bunch.”

“He’s in blind fight club,” Foggy tells Karen, digging through his candy bag as he hitched up defensively in the chair.

Karen has lost track of when they were shitting her or not. She is used to people being rendered filterless with alcohol, but this is different. “Do you expect me to believe that?”

“Would you?” Matt says. “Because I also need something to tell my doctor.”

“What about your priest?” Foggy wants to know.

“Ah.” Matt waves it away. “Seal of confession.”

“You told your priest before you told me?”

“In vague terms. Because I felt bad about ... blind fight club.” He snorts. “We should go with that. It’s pretty much true.”

“You fought another blind person?”

“Who do you think broke all my lamps?” Matt said. “He comes into my apartment, complains that I have bad beer, drinks it anyway, tells me I can’t have nice stuff, then beats the shit out of me. So, yeah. It’s like regular fight club, but you’re blind, and you talk about it.”

“Holy shit!” Karen is somewhat capable of being serious. “Is that who caused the car accident?”

“Yeah, Master Splinter?”

“Stick.” Maybe Matt is just talking complete nonsense right now. His speech is a little slurred because he’s sucking on hard candy. “His name is Stick. And different fight. The other one – that was a different fight. With Nobu.”

“The ninja?”

“Both of them. But Nobu was second. And he tried to kill me. That was car accident guy.”

“Okay okay okay.” Foggy is serious at the same time as looking like his stomach might explode from laughter. “Karen. Karen, we have something to tell you. Matt has something to tell you.”

“Wrong.” Matt is on his back, his eyes staring up at the ceiling, if they can ever really be considered staring at anything. “Foggy does.”

“Matt is a ninja. Matt is a full-on ninja.”

“I never finished my training.” Matt is far more focused on things he can touch and taste than this conversation. “That’s why I think I keep losing. Fisk head-butted me like ... twice? I don’t think full ninjas get head-butted.”

“What the fuck are you doing, being a lawyer? You have to finish your training! You have to go to Tibet!”

“Ninjas don’t come from Tibet, Foggy. Don’t be racist.”

“That’s where Batman went! That’s where he met evil Qui-Gon Jinn.”

“Oh man.” Matt closes his eyes. “I want to be Batman _so bad_.”

“I want you to be Batman so bad. And I could be the rich lawyer who works for Wayne Enterprises! I could just be on retainer. Karen could be the overpaid secretary who covers for you when you never show up!” Foggy looks at Karen again. “We could pay you _so_ much money.”

“I really just want someone to do my laundry,” Matt says. “Not you guys. I would have an Alfred. He would do my laundry. And wipe blood off stuff. I could have a whole room just to bleed in.”

“And you could park the Batmobile in the handicapped space. It would take up two of them but whatever, you’re Batman. No one would fuck with you.” He giggles. “The Mattmobile.”

“The plates would be kind of a giveaway. And I think my ID says NON-DRIVER on it.”

“Do they check Batman’s driver’s license? Do you ever see them do that?”

“Batman doesn’t get in fights with police. I would have to cut way back on that.”

“Holy shit. Holy shit.” Foggy gets up and paces across the small space. “Did you beat up Brett?”

“I ... knocked him around. Like barely _anything_.”

“No Matt! Bad Matt!” Foggy bends over and shakes his fist in Matt’s face. “That is not cool!”

“Yeah, and me getting caught would have been way more uncool. Do you want me to send him a card? With my DNA all over it? I watch CSI.”

“You do?”

“It’s a talky show. They explain most stuff.”

Foggy pauses, then kneels down and puts his head on Matt’s chest like it’s a pillow. “Your shirt is soft, but I am still mad at you.”

“It is really soft. That’s why I’m wearing it.” He raises one hand. “Karen. Candy.”

“Throw stuff at him!”

“Foggy, not helping.”

She doesn’t move an inch off the couch. “What the hell are you guys talking about?”

There’s a long pause, and then Matt says, “I’m Batman.”

“Matt – “

“I’m broke Batman. I have no butler, I don’t know how to drive a car, and I’m blind. But I am Batman.”

Foggy smiles and pats Matt’s head. “You _are_ a sexy playboy by day.”

“Claire’s a nurse. And we’re not dating. You know, the speech about how the lawyer is a mask, Batman is the real me, and I’m not stable?”

“Rachel Dawes from Batman 1?”

“Yeah, that. She did that to me.”

“Sucks, man.”

“How am I gonna stop being Daredevil for her? It’s how _we met_.”

“Wait, what?” A lot of things are making sense to Karen. And at the same time, many more things are making less sense. “You’re Daredevil?”

“I did not choose that name!” Matt puffs his chest, which almost knocks Foggy off him. “Friggin’ Brett did! Do I dress like Evil Kenevil? And yes I know how he dressed, I saw his stunts as a kid.”

“Well how do you know what the costume looks like? Huh?” Foggy waves one hand in front of Matt’s eyes. “HUH?”

“I was _told_ what it looks like.”

“The people at the costume shop told you, ‘here’s a shitty red costume, do you want it?’”

“It was a guy. He wanted me to protect his friend Betsy from Fisk.” Matt adds, “I think Betsy’s a cat or something.”

“Matt!” Karen put one foot on his outstretched arm, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make sure he would know it would hurt. “Are you being serious?”

Matt has a shit-eating grin on his face, but he says, “Tada! Yes. I’m Daredevil. Or whatever people are calling me now. And no, I really can’t see.”

“I already asked,” Foggy says. He has more or less buried his face in Matt’s chest. “He was really offended by that question.”

“It’s offensive!”

“How is it offensive? How, Matt?”

“Because it’s implying blind people can’t be ninjas! You all just assume there’s not a blind ninja army training for some future war that was never made clear to me because my teacher abandoned me for G-d knows what reason – “

“Who were you going to fight?” Foggy asks. “Who is the blind ninja army going to war with?”

“Um.” This question has Matt stuck for a moment. “I dunno. The deaf?”

That is, genuinely, really funny, especially because Matt seems to be throwing the answer into the wind, so Karen joins them in laughter, but she retreats to the touch while they are rolling around on the floor. “I’m still mad at you.”

“It’s going around,” Matt says sympathetically when he finally recovers. “The army’s just two of us so I guess the deaf are going to win.”

“But they’re so easy to sneak up on!”

That ended conversation for a long time.

      ***********************************************

Foggy put on music, but it was more a gentle lull version of trance. He has glowsticks (“they really, really work”) but being the loyal friend he is, he gives Matt a koosh ball, which is a squishy ball made of latex that looks like a puffer fish and makes a wet, soothing sound when it is squeezed. Matt makes several attempts to hurl it at the wall and catch it on the return, but it just stuck to wall and slowly slid to the floor.

“I’m like a bat,” he says.

“Bats aren’t blind,” Foggy unhelpfully points out. He’s on the floor, but his feet are up on the couch next to Karen. Fortunately, he is wearing socks.

“They use echolocation to see. Sounds bouncing off walls. But also regular sight. They have both.”

“Like Batman.”

“Batman doesn’t – does Batman –“ Matt frowns. “Foggy, you’re fucking me up.”

“You have soft hair.” Foggy has been exploring it with his fingers for the last ten minutes. His hands wander down. “Your face is itchy.”

“Stop touching it then.” But Matt has to physically remove the hand from his cheek. “Shaving is hard.”

“Because you’re blind or lazy?”

“Both.”

“I could grow a beard.”

“But then how would ladies see your acne scars?”

“I hate you.” But Foggy says it more like he loves him. Which he seems to. Either it’s the molly talking or they really, really love each other (platonically, mostly, she’s pretty sure) and it’s also the molly talking. “I hate you so much.”

“Yeah I love you too.”

“I should have never let you feel my face. Unless you can hear acne scars?”

“No, it doesn’t work like that.”

“How do you know how women are pretty? Because you know. You always know.”

“I don’t know what you consider sexy.”

“There is a universal sexy.”

“There is not.”

“Tell me what you think is sexy.” Foggy nudges him, or tries to, by throwing another piece of candy in Matt’s direction. So far, he has never failed to catch one. “Matt. Matt. Tell me. Tell me your secret.”

“Um, Karen?” Matt waved in her general direction. “Okay topic?”

“Are you talking about me?”

“Just in general.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Matt swallows his current candy. “First, she can’t smell bad. That’s a deal breaker.”

“That’s a deal breaker for anyone.”

“I’m more sensitive to it. Other than that ...” He shrugged. “It’s how she smells, how she sounds, how she carries herself. You can tell how she feels about herself. Like ... okay, let’s say she’s wearing a ton of makeup, and perfume, and some other products. She just smells like one big batch of chemicals.”

“That would be bad,” Foggy says. It’s more of a question.

“Yeah, but she could not do that. She chose to do that. If she chose to do it because she wants to get noticed by guys, then I don’t like it so much. If she does it because she feels like she has to, because of society or whatever, or she thinks she smells bad, but she doesn’t, it’s not great but it’s better. She might just need someone to tell her it’s okay, she doesn’t have to do all that, she’s fine as she is. Then you get someone with very little product on, or no products, or maybe just one thing she’s wearing because she likes it, that’s confidence. That’s inner beauty. That’s attractive.”

“Aww,” Karen says. “That’s sweet.”

“And that’s how he gets the ladies,” Foggy says. “With lines like that.”

“It’s not a line, Foggy.”

“It can be true and still be a line,” he says. “Can you tell if someone has a dye job?”

“Like everyone over thirty dies their hair. I don’t hold it against them.”

“Marci dyes her hair.”

“Yeah, I knew that. She bleaches and then dyes. The expensive stuff. Takes a while to do.”

“Do you know her real hair color?”

Matt frowns. “Dyes. Colors. Not the same thing. But most people who bleach do it to go blond.”

“Karen’s blond.”

“Karen’s a natural blond then.”

“Um, thanks.” Karen did find this conversation a little disturbing.

“I wouldn’t have said anything if you weren’t,” Matt says. “Everybody dyes. I don’t hold it against people.”

“What about wigs?”

“Synthetic wigs are all just plastic,” Matt explains. “Real wigs, the expensive ones? They boil the hair, then they glue it together. So it’s pretty distinct. It mostly just smells of the glue.”

“Can you smell cancer? Like dogs?”

“That’s a myth.”

“How do you know? Have you asked any dogs?”

Matt giggles. “I can’t talk to dogs. I mean, I can talk to them, but they don’t talk back.”

Karen felt she had the right to ask a question at this point. “Why are you so against getting a guide dog?”

“It’s a dog. It’s a living thing. You don’t return it when you’re done walking around for the day. You take care of it. You take it for walks and you take it to the park and you let it play in nature. I barely sleep as it is! When am I going to take care of this dog?” He sighs. “Having a giant working dog cooped up in an apartment is just cruel.”

“So you can be a ninja but you can’t manage a dog?”

“Yes. That is what I’m saying. And I don’t think I’m a very good ninja.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t be a bummer.”

Matt sighs. “Remember Leland Owsley?”

“Fisk’s financial advisor?” Karen asks.

“Yes. The old man with bad eyesight.” Matt closes his eyes. “He took me down in one hit. He had a taser.”

Two out of the three people present – one of whom is neither drunk nor high – burst out laughing. Matt just mumbles, “Tasers hurt, guys.”


	3. The hero this city deserves, apparently

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta-ed by Fishy42. Thanks Fishy!
> 
> Are you a fanfic writer? Want to thank me for writing this? Go finish your on WIP. Committing to finishing my work is what made me the writer I am today - mostly broke, happier writing fanfic, but still a published author.

If asked (and she hopes she won’t be), Karen would describe the next two hours as “crazy dancing and finger painting.”

Matt says he doesn’t know how to dance, so he doesn’t. Foggy says he’s a terrible dancer, but that’s not stopping him.

“He has to drink water,” Matt tells Karen.

“Don’t let him eat paint,” Foggy shouts back. All the paint Foggy purchased is so child-safe Matt probably could down a bottle or two and be just fine; Karen checks. There’s a number of bottles, but Matt has only used the green one. He has not asked what color it is. He’s more interested in the feeling of the paint on his skin than on the canvas, which turns into a big wet blob very quickly.

Matt seems fine with this. “I’m not planning on putting it up on the wall or anything.”

“You should do that!” Foggy jumps up in down. Just in general. “You should get some art.”

Matt falls over from laughing so hard. It takes another ten minutes to get a semi-coherent story out of him. “ – And so Fisk headbutts me, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh no he’s gonna get close, he’s gonna figure out I was the guy hitting on his girlfriend like _six hours ago_.’”

“You were hitting on her?”

“I prefer to think of it as just being charming.” Matt’s got that smug grin on his face, because he knows _exactly_ what he was doing. “You know, for reconnaissance.”

“Yeah buddy, it seems like you learned a lot there.”

“What the fuck is a sea of tonal reds? Can someone tell me? Is that a thing?”

“It’s a good description of a piece of art,” Karen says.

“I guess she was just assuming I knew what red was. I mean, I do, but she didn’t know that! I didn’t tell her that. She could have showed me a blank wall for all she knew about what I know.” Matt now has finger paint pretty much all over his shirt and face, and the green infection has only stopped because Karen insisted he wash his hands. “She didn’t. There was, you know, a canvas there. In a frame. Fuck if I know what it looked like. I just know what it smelled like.”

“Which was ...?”

“Like it was out of my price range. I was really worried that things would go on for too long, and I would have to buy it. At least Karen bought fax machines.”

“Which don’t work,” Foggy is so kind to point out. “Sorry Karen.”

“It makes the office feel like an office,” Matt says. “I don’t think the folding table is impressing clients.”

“We need more evil bad guys to put us on retainer before you beat them up,” Foggy adds. He is scouring the ground for more candy, which he spilled at some point. He’s already gotten himself mummified in the bubble wrap twice doing the same thing, which is good for a laugh, especially because he doesn’t ask for help until he’s well and truly tangled. “Who do the Avengers fight? Do they need lawyers?”

“I don’t think aliens needs lawyers, Foggy.”

“Man, you have to be an Avenger.” He grabs his friend and pulls on his arm a little more harshly then he intends. “Please, please tell me you’ll become an Avenger.”

“I can’t be an Avenger. You have to go to space. How are you going to run the firm if your partner is always in space?”

“At least introduce me to Captain America.”

“I don’t know Captain America!” Matt picks his head up and turns it in Karen’s general direction. “He’s been asking me since he found out. He thinks we all know each other. Which we don’t.”

“But if you do meet him, you will invite me to the cool Avengers parties.”

“I don’t even _know_ if they have cool Avenger parties.”

“They must! Oh man, do you think they would do E with us?”

Matt is laughing, but he says, “I think that would be super bad, Foggy. They’re all super-armed. They’re walking weapons. Or that’s what I’ve heard.”

“We spent the Chitauri invasion in Landman and Zack’s bomb shelter,” Foggy says helpfully. “They didn’t even know they had one. It was an old fallout shelter thingy, and it had no working lights. Pitch black in there.”

“And that’s when I became a god among men!” Matt raises his arms triumphantly.

“Until we turned on our cell phones.”

Matt puts his arms down. “My reign was short but glorious.”

  ***********************************************

There’s a lull in the action because Foggy can’t dance any more without making his heart explode (or so Matt warns him), and Foggy agrees to give him a foot massage if Matt can do a one-handed handstand and hold it, which it turns out he can. He holds it for twenty minutes before toppling because his giggling was throwing off his balance. Foggy really thought out this padding business. It’s impressive.

He’s convinced Matt to wear a chain of glowsticks around his neck. Matt is very open to suggestions, particularly if they’re from Foggy. The natural rhythm of their friendship is certainly enhanced by the drug, which explains Foggy’s earlier comment about this maybe being why they haven’t murdered each other over the years.

“Matt.” Foggy is now just outright poking Matt’s prone form on the ground. “Matt. Matt.”

“Fuckin’ ask your question already.”

“How do you know I’m going to ask a question? Are you doing that thing again? That creepy thing?”

“No, I just know everything about you.”

“I have secrets!”

“Nope,” is Matt’s rather flippant, but definitive, answer.

“Uh ... um ... uh, what did I eat for breakfast this morning?”

“Captain Crunch.”

“When was the last time I had sex?”

“Wednesday night.” Matt isn’t even looking in his direction. His face is buried in the floor. “Tell Marci I say hi.”

The weird thing is, Foggy isn’t too bothered by this revelation. “Would you tell me if Marci was cheating on me?”

“No. I would tell _her_ to tell _you_.”

“You wouldn’t – um, do what you did to Brett?”

“I don’t hit women, Foggy.”

“That’s sexist. Isn’t that a little bit sexist? Karen?”

“Pass,” Karen says.

Foggy redirects his energy right back to Matt. “What if you’re fighting a drug dealer, and it’s a woman?”

“Oh my G-d, she kicked my ass. I don’t even know how she did that. She was like, a little old Chinese lady. I seem to mainly lose to the elderly. I don’t know why that is.”

“Matt. Matt.” He’s trying to whisper, but he’s failing. “Can you tell if a chick’s on her period?”

After a notable moment of hesitation, Matt says, “Pass.”

“That’s a yes! I know that’s a yes!”

Matt musters as much anger as he’s capable of right now. “I said PASS. And don’t call them chicks. They’re _women_.”

“Um, yeah, I’m vetoing this all,” Karen gestures broadly, “right here.”

“But – “

“VETO,” Matt shouts into the floor.

“Okay. Okay. Okay.” Foggy is chewing on his glowstick thoughtfully. Apparently, there is something about MDMA and jaws getting stiff. Karen read something about it on a website before coming over. “Okay,” Foggy repeats. “Matt, are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

“You’re not upset?”

“No.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been mad at you.”

“Will you teach me your ninja ways?”

“No.”

Foggy gets to his knees and drags himself to Matt’s laptop to change the music. YouTube is more than happy to help him find music for people in his exact mindset, judging just from the number of hits he gets. “Your speakers are for shit!”

“Oh my G-d I know. I know way better than you do.” Matt runs his hands through his hair. “Let’s win some cases. Get money. Buy good speakers.”

“Pay Karen,” Karen says.

“Yes, that.” Matt points at her. “Pay Karen. Let’s get Karen lots of money. Maybe we could sue someone.”

“We are lawyers.”

“That’s very astute, Foggy. Good for you.”

“Is this how all of your amazing life choices are made?” Karen asks, because how could she not?

“And some less-than-stellar ones,” Matt readily admits. “Though I do not feel like beating up random muggers right now. So it’s a pretty unusual night.”

“Clearly the answer to Hell’s Kitchen’s vigilante problem is more drugs,” Foggy says.

“I don’t know why they’re even still here. They really only have to go as far as the West Village and they’re out of my range. _If_ _that_.”

“Yeah but you don’t know where Spider-Man is.”

“For the last time, I DON’T KNOW SPIDER-MAN. I will TELL YOU if I meet him.”

“Fuck that, I want to meet Captain America.”

Matt manages to look a bit annoyed at Foggy, which in his current state is saying something. “Turn the music up. The Sterns across the street are fighting over redecorating their kitchen. It’s really boring.”

Foggy does.

***********************************************

They start to come down around midnight. They get all lovey-dovey, but they’re moving slower. Foggy’s switched the music to some atmospheric nonsense meant to “elevate delta brainwaves with binaural beats” and stolen all of the silk-encased pillows from Matt’s bed to build a fort that he’s currently hiding under. Matt has moved to the couch. It’s unclear if he’s listening to the music, Karen’s iPhone game, or something else entirely. Taking another dose is discussed, and then vetoed by Karen, who has been given prior instructions to do so.

“Matt.” She first asks because she’s not entirely sure if he hasn’t fallen asleep with his eyes open.

“Yeah?”

“Why were you talking about the Man in the Mask?”

“Um, because that’s me?” Matt sits up, though he’s not entirely straight. “We went over this.”

“But you’re blind.”

“Yes. But I have ninja powers.” He’s even a little annoyed and gestures to the closet behind her. “You can just go and look in the trunk if you want. There’s a false bottom under my dad’s boxing stuff.”

He’s not kidding, apparently, because he continues to play with his plastic squid ball while she investigates. There’s a padlock on the door to the closet, but it’s in the open position, and there’s no response from the room’s other occupants as she removes it and pulls the doors open. There’s nothing inside but a very old, very musty trunk that smells of aging leather and rust.

She’s not sure what she’s expecting. Some kind of elaborate jack-in-the-box with a clown that was going to pop out at her? A dead body? A boring stack of legal papers? But all that greets her eyes is the bright, bloody red of a shiny boxing robe that’s more like a cape, with the letters MURDOCK in bold - in case she could possibly be confused about its former owner – and an old set of boxing gloves.

Yeah, Matt might have a few issues.

The first level is deep, but it’s easy enough to remove. She releases the breath she didn’t realize she was holding when she pulls it aside to reveal ... nothing. An empty box, only darkness staring back up at her.

“Okay you guys.” But it’s not okay. “Very funny. I really appreciated you making me spend my Saturday night having a massive practical joke played on me.”

Matt’s head cocks to the side curiously. “It’s not in there?”

“Oh shit!” Foggy’s voice is muffled by the pillow fort. “You lost your costume?”

Matt sniffs around without actually getting up, then slaps his face with his hand a little too hard. “I think it’s still in the dryer.”

Foggy bursts out laughing. “Why the hell would it be in the dryer?”

“Because that’s where you put it after you wash it, dumbass.” Matt stands up and kicks Foggy’s pillow fort over. “I can’t use the laundry room. People will get suspicious.”

Matt doesn’t have a laundry room in his apartment, but he does have a washer and dryer set shoved into a corner of his bedroom, obviously a recent purchase. Karen is about to scold them again at having to sort through Matt’s underwear when she pops the door open, and sitting there in a mixed lump is pile of red and black padded fabrics. There’s still static electricity present, and it causes pin pricks on her arm as she pulls the bundle out, including the molded, layered devil mask.

“It didn’t melt did it?” Matt shouts from the living room. Because that is the kind of shit he is worried about.

“Karen! Gimme!” Foggy drags himself across the floor. She wordlessly hands over the mask, which he handles like it’s a dollar-store plastic mask to go with a child’s Halloween costume. “What? Why does it have eye holes?”

“Because I didn’t _tell_ him I was blind and he just _assumed_ that I wasn’t. Why are people always doing that?”

Karen looks at Matt, then at Foggy, who is holding the mask of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, the man who saved her life, who helped Ben, who caught Fisk when the FBI failed, and this doesn’t make any G-ddamn sense to her. It certainly doesn’t match the description of the chucklehead currently trying to reassemble a pillow fort he just destroyed so he can, apparently, just go to sleep on his floor instead of the comfy bed in the next room. Like he’s eight.

The guy who ... has been injured recently. A lot. Way too many times for even a regular blind guy who lives in a neighborhood full of buildings going up in flames, corrupt police shooting people, and more corrupt police shooting the first set of police who were shooting at the SWAT team – the footage from Fisk’s escape was all very confusing. Matt showed up to work late with tissues stuffed in his nose to prevent further bleeding.

It was not her best move, but she’d done worse. Karen walks over to Matt and kicks him (somewhat) hard, in the gut, and he isn’t expecting it, so he rolls over. “Ow. Karen, what – “

He deserves a few more.

“I said she’d be mad at you,” Foggy says.

“ _Why didn’t you save Ben?_ ” she screams. “Why the hell did you save me and not Ben?”

Matt doesn’t actually have an immediate response to this. He bites his lip and waits until she stops kicking him. She could hurt him, really hurt him, right now, but she doesn’t have it in her. And dammit, he does have those puppy-dog eyes going for him, working especially well because they can’t focus, making him look innocent and helpless, which he is not.

Foggy keeps his mouth shut for once.

“Ummmm.” Matt tries to piece together an answer. “That was ... I think that was the night of the opium den thing. I went to the office, you were super upset, I said something about humanity and a pit.” He really is trying to concentrate and be serious, but he’s having trouble. “Foggy and I were still fighting. I didn’t know what the hell Ben was up to. So I think I went home, drank the rest of my beer, and passed out.” He shrugs. “I don’t have a better answer. I wish I did. If I’d killed Fisk like I – fuck it, if I’d killed him earlier, it wouldn’t have happened. But, um, I decided not to do that.”

“Because you were bleeding out?” Foggy adds.

Matt snaps his fingers. “Yes, that. I was bleeding to death. That’s why I didn’t kill Fisk. And that’s how Foggy found out, and then it became a whole ... thing,” he says. “And then I was gonna try to kill him again and Foggy gave me a speech about using the law – “

“ – which we did – “

“ – and then I got hit in the face a bunch of times by Fisk but he finally stayed down. It was hard. He’s a really big guy.”

Foggy can’t entirely stifle a giggle.

Karen stands over Matt so that she’s glaring at him, and he should be able to tell that, if he can jump off buildings and beat up drug dealers. “How much of what you said tonight was true?”

“I’m not really Batman,” he says; he’s trying very hard not to smile, and it shows. “And I can’t become Batman because I think I’d get sued. But I could use all of that money. And a Batcave. Everything else, though. That’s true.” He leans his head back against the ground. “I didn’t know a better way to tell you.”

“That’s the reason you got high?”

“Foggy made a good case for it in general,” Matt says. “And I think he was saving up all of these superhero questions.” He kicks in Foggy’s general direction, but misses him. “Also, it’s cold outside. So we’re inside.” He tries to look in her general direction. “You can keep kicking me if it makes you feel better, but can I at least have a beer?”

“No alcohol,” she reminds him. “Your rules.”

“I want to, um, object. Do - court things. Court words.”

“And this is why we do this on the weekends,” Foggy says triumphantly, as if he’s some criminal mastermind.

***********************************************

By 1 AM, they’re both asleep. Together. Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson, the two drugged up law firm partners, both crash on the bed with only a few inches between them; Foggy still has his hand near Matt’s head, which he was previously petting. It’s a little bit gay, but Karen has to admit it’s also fucking adorable. Because Matt looks like an adorable human equivalent of a puppy when he sleeps, it’s hard to imagine him as a vicious, crime-fighting vigilante whose life of street brawls now not-so-mysteriously became entwined with hers. A lot of things are starting to make sense, but she’s too tired to think about them, so she taps out for the night.

She needs to face Matt again before work, and she knows where to find him on a Sunday afternoon. She sleeps late and waits for church bells, then heads to the diner across the street from Matt’s church, where he and most of the other diners are sitting in their Sunday best, ordering as many pancakes as they can and gossiping. Matt has a table in the corner. He’s sitting alone in a neat but very worn-looking suit, carefully stirring his tea with a tiny spoon so it doesn’t clink. In front of him is a half-eaten pastry. He’s his old self – quiet, hiding his expression behind his glasses, and looking dour. He manages a grunt as she sits down across from him. “Hi.”

“How are you feeling?”

He shrugs mechanically. “Down. My brain used up all of my serotonin. It takes a day to come back.” Matt sips his tea. “You can use weed to soften it, but I just can’t stand the smell. It’s sticky. It gets everywhere and it stays there.”

“Aren’t you the professional?” She can’t help but grin, even though she is nervous around him. Can he tell that? “How’s Foggy?”

“I made him eat something before he went home. He’ll show up tomorrow crabby and starving but he’ll be fine.” He adds, “He says thank you, by the way. We both do.”

“No problem. It was ... fun.” She could admit to herself that it was. “You’re lucky I didn’t take a video and put it on the website.”

“We have a website?” Matt deadpans. “Is it nice?”

“You _really_ need to pay me more.”

“We do.”

They lapse into silence. Matt doesn’t appear tired, but he is low energy, and it’s not as if something isn’t hanging over them. After a few moments he clears his throat. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. There never seemed to be a good time.”

“You told Foggy.”

“Foggy found out. It was different. And ... terrible. As you heard,” Matt says. “I wasn’t ready to go through that again.”

“That’s fair.” She has to admit it is. Their success at patching things up is the only reason she still has a job. “I’m still mad at you. And now I want to ask you things.”

Matt smiles. “Save it for the office Christmas party.”

The End

**Author's Note:**

> I don't endorse any of this behavior. If you're an adult, and you're thinking taking an illegal substance, educate yourself about the risks. Your life is your responsibility. Head to dancesafe.org for more information.


End file.
